


Laius Thorden and the Garden of Earthly Delights

by noetherSA



Category: Moyashimon | Moyasimon: Tales of Agriculture, ダンジョン飯 | Dungeon Meshi | Delicious in Dungeon
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Cat Angst, Catboys & Catgirls, Gen, Illustrations, actually just catgirls but y'know tags, allusions to touhou, dungeon meshi setting, itsuki is just laius with tenure, non-canon AU
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-01-15
Updated: 2020-01-26
Packaged: 2021-02-27 03:54:53
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 2
Words: 5,430
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/22270639
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/noetherSA/pseuds/noetherSA
Summary: The Thorden gang travels to a local college to help sort out a dungeoneering project gone wrong, and maybe try out some supernatural fermented foods while they're at it! Along the way, Izutsumi grapples with her past and self-perception while kindred spirit Kei Yuuki coaxes her towards a more healthy understanding of their shared experience.
Relationships: Izutsumi/Marcille (Dungeon Meshi), Sawaki Tadayasu/Yuuki Kei
Comments: 8
Kudos: 11





	1. Calamari

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Laius Thorden: Human fighting-man. His fursona is a dog with two heads who breathe ice and fire, respectively
> 
> Chilchack: A halfling technician adept at disarming both traps and social snafus. Feels bad when he's late on alimony.
> 
> Izutsumi: Catgirl ninja with a past full of trauma. Never learned how to use chopsticks correctly and refuses to try. Her greatest skills are cool knives and asexuality.
> 
> Farlyn Thorden: Laius’ sister and a skilled healer. Supportive of and inspiration for Marcille’s fanfic hobby. 
> 
> Toshiro "Sureau" Nakamoto: Southeastern noble Izutsumi served under and former member of Laius' party. Laius wonders why he never writes back.

Marcille's mouth set alight as the chili powder and paprika from their fried calamari temporarily overpowered their senses. The spice started to affect their sinuses, and they blew their nose in their napkin in the most dignified way they could manage. God, it was so nice eating normal, recognizable food again. It wasn't like, squirming or leaking mysterious fluids or trying to murder them for sport, it was just, y'know, regular food for normal people.

Across the table, Laius shot them a look like they were gnawing on a severed arm. "I don't know how you can eat that stuff. It's so... _unspeakable_." a shiver ran down his spine.

Marcille swallowed. "Oh come off it," They shook their half-eaten calamari loop towards Laius as they scolded them, "Don't let that stupid kraken ruin your perception of all cephalopod cuisine! And- and who are _you_ to get on _my_ case about eating weird stuff? You'd eat a _shoggoth_ if they grew around here!"

"Look, there's just some lines people shouldn't cross," Laius lectured.

"You know what, whatever." Marcille sighed. This wasn't the kind of argument they could win. They pulled their notebook out of their pack. "So I checked the bulletin board outside for jobs," they began. "Most of them were just material harvesting stuff, but there were a couple more interesting ones in there too."

"What's wrong with harvesting jobs?" Chilchack interjected, "They're easy and you don't have clients breathing down your neck the whole way like with escort quests or more involved stuff."

"Maybe, but we've been doing so many of those recently," Marcille lamented, "A change of pace or scenery might be nice, y'know? Just to like, meet some new people and- Izutsumi! Slow down, you're getting food everywhere!"

Next to Marcille, Izutsumi wolfed down a chunk of fried fish in a frenzy, scattering flecks of grease and batter across their hood, their robes and the table in front of them in the process. It was a wonder any of it made it into their mouth. Marcille brushed a bit of fish off their own cloak and looked in dismay at the splotch of grease it left in its place. Across from the two of them, Chilchack was mostly obscured by the table and a tankard of ale about the size of their head, though the smirk on their face shone through. Laius leaned against the wall next to them, whittling something out of wood. Whatever it was, it looked like it was going to have two heads, because... of course it was.

Marcille had asked Farlyn about that once. By their account, to "breathe ice and fire from each head" was some kind of saying in their homeland about strength or boisterousness or something that Laius had always taken literally. That one was such a dork.

Laius looked up from their handiwork. "I'm fine with going somewhere else for a while. It'd be nice to see some new monsters for a change. There's still a ton I want to cook that don't spawn on The Island, like Azhdaha. Or Zhu Que."

Marcille held their hand out in front of them and their ears drooped a bit. "Laius, please, I am begging you, do not start with that," They paused to compose themselves. "Anyway. The first one I saw that looked neat was a request by a shepherd out in like, the hills back there, I guess," they motioned vaguely over their shoulder, "They think there's some chupacabra raiding their flock."

Izutsumi put their reverie on hold. "I'm not going anywhere near a chupacabra," they protested, "I don't wanna catch any weird diseases. Those things have like, mange and stuff."

"...You can catch mange?" Marcille asked, concerned. Sensing a safe opening, they reached their handkerchief over and tried to wipe away a stray bit of batter off Izutsumi's face.

"Toshiro's cat gave me an eye infection once. I'm not taking any chances." They caught Marcille's hand in their own and lowered it onto the table slowly and deliberately.

"Huh. Okay then." Marcille's gaze wandered down across the table to their hands before darting back to their notebook. This was just like in _The Dalchian Family,_ book nine, _Ephemeral Lily in Twilight Haze_ , when- they shook their head and tried to get back on track. "Uh, another one was um, some merchants were losing caravans out in the mountains over past Izdanda, and they want someone to investigate."

"It's probably a hive of giant wasps or something," Chilchack speculated. "That area is lousy with them, man. Do we really want to deal with those things again?" they shivered. "I would rather not put myself in a position where I might get eggs laid in my stomach if I can help it."

Marcille had a brief flashback to picking giant wasp larvae out of Laius' chest cavity before Farlyn could revive them. They shook their head to force the tactile feeling of fresh viscera in their hands out of their mind. "Okay yeah, I'll grant you that one. Uh," Marcille rubbed their temples. "Let's see, a while back, someone from the agricultural university back in Karka Broud asked me to consult on a dungeoneering project, uh, I dunno if that would be interesting to you folks at all, but it'd probably at least pay okay."

"That college is over by Little Gensokyo,1 right?" Laius asked. "I bet Izutsumi would get a kick out of that."

"I guess," Izutsumi shrugged. "I didn't exactly enjoy living there or being with Toshiro and those guys though, you know." They thought for a moment. "Well, Tade was kinda okay, I guess."

"Really?" Laius looked taken aback. "I thought you were all good friends and stuff."

Izutsumi leaned forward in incredulity. "Are you kidding? We barely tolerated each other."

"But you came all the way out here together?" Laius puzzled, "That's like, a week or two on a boat, right?"

"Yeah but-" Izutsumi rolled their eyes and sunk back in their seat. "Oh whatever. At least the food there is probably recognizable."

"If you're actually okay with giving us a cut, I wouldn't mind going." Chilchack took a sip of beer. "It's been ages since we've been to the city. I don't know how much help any of the rest of us would be with dungeoneering, though."

"Who knows," Marcille shrugged, "I got the letter a couple weeks ago, maybe it's unraveled into chaos by now."

* * *

Izutsumi stared up at the ceiling of her room at the inn, unable to sleep. The imperfections in the wooden boards above formed into abstract faces and animals and monsters in her mind's eye. The place was nearly silent save for the scritching noise of Marcille writing tirelessly in her notebook on the bunk below her, punctuated occasionally by little frustrated groans. A small oil lamp perched on the end table washed the room in a warm, dim light.

She scowled and turned over on her side. Laius had been acting like visiting Little Gensokyo was going to be some grand homecoming for her, as if all the memories she had of that shithole island weren't of being locked up in a cage or standing on call to murder whoever the Nakamoto family pointed her at. She was never meaningfully part of that culture at all. Seeing it replicated in some immigrant town was probably going to feel _more_ alienating and weird to her than it was for her travelling companions.

This wasn't getting anywhere. At this point Izutsumi would just spend all night with her mind racing and then be both seasick _and_ sleep deprived on the ferry ride back to the mainland in the morning. She peered over the side of her bunk at Marcille. A voiceless urge from somewhere in the deepest recesses of her mind implored Izutsumi to scamper down the bedpost and find some cozy spot on her to curl up against, but she fought it down. That kind of thing was a great way to get relegated to the role of "weird animal" again, after all.

Maybe if she took a walk outside or something it'd help clear her head. Or at least tire her out a bit. She hastily threw her robes back on and leapt down from the bunk.

"Are you going out?" Marcille looked up from her work. Her bed was strewn with loose pages of notes punctuated by a few large open tomes. "You should sleep. We have to get up early tomorrow to catch the ferry."

"Can't," Izutsumi made for the door.

"Oh." Marcille's ears drooped a bit. "Um, be- be careful out there, okay Izutsumi?"

That voiceless urge grew ever more insistent, and it was all Izutsumi could do to shrug and slink out the door.

The moonlight streamed into the hallway through an open window, coating the creaky floorboards in its pale silvery glow and casting stark shadows across each of the shallow ridges and knots in the wood. An owl outside hooted contemplatively. The sounds of lovemaking from one of the rooms down the hall set the fur on Izutsumi's neck on edge and she hurried downstairs.

The myriad smells of food and revelry hung in the air down in the tavern below. Roasted animal fats, simmered garlic, onions, and spices, fragrant herbs, and spilled alcohol blended together into a tantalizing, if ephemeral, scentscape.

"Trouble sleeping?" Chilchack's voice emanated from one of the booths, his body entirely obscured by the backboards.

"None of your business," Izutsumi grumbled.

"You really shouldn't go out this late," he warned. "Melini gets pretty dangerous after dark. Lots of bandits and con artists looking to pick off adventurers returning from the dungeon."

"Yeah, I bet _you_ would know," Izutsumi jeered. She started towards the source of his voice.

"Hmm," Chilchack considered, unamused. As Izutsumi rounded the corner of the booth, she finally caught sight of him, sitting more or less upright with his legs dangling off the seat. He took a sip out of his wineskin. "Wanna play cards for a bit? Might help take your mind off things without painting a big target on your back." he fished a felt bag out of his pocket and held it aloft.

"How do I know you're not gonna cheat?" she jabbed an accusatory finger towards him. "Who says I need to take anything off my mind anyway?"

Chilchack giggled, his voice jingling like a shaken coin purse. "Whatever you say, man. And we don't have to play for money or anything. Honestly I'd rather not unless _you_ have a deck we could use. The last thing I want is to ruin my reputation with a stupid dispute over gambling."

Ah fuck it. He was probably right about the prowling rogues -not that she couldn't handle herself, of course- and there were worse ways to pass time than trying to get a rise out of him. Izutsumi slid into the booth opposite her companion. "I got a hanafuda deck in my pack, but I think it's missing a few cards. Let's just use yours, I guess."

"Cool," Chilchack opened the pouch and slid the worn deck of cards into his hand. He began shuffling. "I remember playing koi koi with Sureau a couple times, the guy would clean all of us out without even breaking a sweat. 'Course it didn't help none of us had played before we met him. And Marcille is probably the easiest to read person on the island. Laius has a _weirdly_ good poker face though."

"Mm," Izutsumi slumped forward and folded her arms under her chin. "That sure sounds like Toshiro. What are we playing anyway?"

"Let's think..." Chilchack pondered. "Oh! I got one you might like. It's called 'speed.'" he finished shuffling and dealt the cards out in a complicated pattern on the table. "I used to play this with my kids a lot when they were younger. Okay. So these cards are your hand, and this is your draw pile. When the game starts, we turn these cards over and you place down ones from your hand that are one more or one less than the value here, and you can draw cards from your pile to get back to five in your hand. And then if neither of us can play anything, we turn over cards from these piles and keep playing. The cards go two through ten, jack, queen, king, and then ace is both above king and below two, so it kinda loops around" he traced out a circle in the air with his finger. "The winner is the one who empties their entire draw pile first."2

Izutsumi yawned. "This sounds boring as hell. No wonder your dumb kids liked it."

Chilchack smirked. "I'm not done explaining. There's no turns or anything in this game. You play all at once and as fast as you can. Hence, the name speed. I figure I'd trounce you at anything requiring, like, _forethought_ , but we might be almost evenly matched here."

Her ears perked up and she grinned, despite herself. "You wish! I'll wipe the floor with you!"

"Sure, you're welcome to try," he egged her on. "Okay. Ready?" The two of them hovered their hands over the pair of cards in the center of the table. "Go!"

They flipped the cards over and each dove into their own hands. Izutsumi quickly laid out most of hers before realizing with a start that she had to replace the missing cards. Chilchack pressed the opening with a flurry of motion and cards that might impress even a Hakurei3 shrine maiden, leaving Izutsumi momentarily stunned. She tried to push back into the game, only to find Chilchack's hand caught beneath hers. He'd already made the move she was aiming for. Involuntarily, her ears shot back across the top of her head and she bared her fangs and hissed.

"Wow, you're really getting into this huh?" Chilchack teased.

"Shut up and play, dumbass!" She withdrew her hand and tried to regain her composure. It wasn't worth letting her feline mannerisms get the better of her over some stupid game. Though that said, she couldn't help swishing her tail back and forth under her robes to focus.

The game continued, and Izutsumi began to get the hang of playing and refilling her hand with some degree of finesse, though by that point, Chilchack's pile was looking dangerously thin. Frankly, the game was starting to look hopeless, and the prideful part of her found itself in heated debate whether to accept this loss and come back stronger next game to smash that gloating oaf's face into the dirt, or just flip the table and bolt right then. Each passing second made that decision harder, but she resolved to continue.

Izutsumi found herself out of moves, and watched in dismay as Chilchack continued to widen his lead. His loaded the last of his draw pile into his hand, though mercifully he fell still.

"You're out too?" he asked.

"Yeah. Otherwise I'd be using my spell card4 or some shit right now and totally kicking your ass."

"Right, of course," He smirked. "Let's flip over these cards now." They took their positions. "Ready? Go!"

She saw an opening and deftly thrust her hand into the fray, only for Chilchack's to come down directly on top of hers not a moment later. A wave of gleeful mirth hit her and she started laughing triumphantly, grinning ear to ear. Chilchack swore under his breath in the halfling tongue.

"Looks like you're getting pretty into this too, eh?" Izutsumi prodded.

"Hey man, in this house we play to _win_ ," he shot back, his eyes fiery with determination.

At the final stretch, Izutsumi emptied the final cards in her pile into her hand. Part of her almost believed she could win after all. All it would take was the perfect-

"Done!" Chilchack played his last card and held his hands aloft.

"Shit!" Izutsumi angrily cast the remainder of her hand down to the table and folded her arms.

"That was pretty good," Chilchack started collecting the scattered cards on the table back into a deck. "Still got a ways to go before you could give my kids a run for their money, but definitely promising." Some of the cards stuck out at odd angles to the rest of the deck and he carefully rotated them back into place. "Wanna play another round?"

Izutsumi hesitated, and scrunched up her face as she considered. Though she had lost, it was hard to ignore how much fun she'd had. Her heart was still pounding. "...Sure. If you insist."

Chilchack giggled again and began reshuffling the cards. Suddenly his face turned serious, and he took a deep breath. "Hey, so, I guess I really don't know what happened between you and Sureau and those guys, but I kinda get it if you're anxious about this trip."

"Who- who says I'm anxious about anything?" Izutsumi demanded, flustered. "I've never felt fear in my life!"

"Come on, man, it's not hard to piece together," he insisted. "You're about as easy to read as Marcille. Seriously though, I get it. I know in my case I have a hard time visiting the halfling quarter whenever we go to Karka Broud because it always ends up reminding me of my family, and of losing them. Just like, 'oh I guess my youngest would be about as old as her,' or 'holy shit that lady looked just like my wife -er, ex-wife, I guess- from the corner of my eye,' y'know? It hurts."

"I guess my point is like," Chilchack continued, "It's okay to feel weird about revisiting signifiers of bad shit from your past. Normal, even." He paused his shuffling to take a swig of ale. "But like, those other halflings aren't my family, and we won't run into Sureau's party or whoever else just screwing around in Little Gensokyo. It's a different world full of new people who don't have any real tie to the people who hurt you. I think it'll be okay."

Izutsumi's entire figure drooped, from her ears to her shoulders down to her tail, as if she were a living armor liberated of its hard shell by Chilchack's words. "...Yeah. Yeah, I guess." she started to feel a lump in her throat.

"And hey, all of us will be there with you to back you up if shit goes west5 for some reason. You don't have to be alone anymore. Anyway. Ready for another round?"

Izutsumi nodded eagerly, and Chilchack spread the cards back on the table.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 1 Gensokyo is one of many clashing island nations currently in conflict in the southeastern archipelago, from which Toshiro “Sureau” Nakamoto and company hail. The nation underwent a large-scale diaspora following the sacking of the overactive dungeon known colloquially as “yokai mountain” by the elven empire in 452, and much of the remaining territory was later ceded in local squabbles. The preponderance of dungeons within the island fostered a vibrant folklore involving all manner of witches, nature spirits, and vampires of dubious maturity.
> 
> 2 Play it yourself! Rules [here](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Speed_\(card_game\))
> 
> 3 The Hakurei monastic order is a familiar part of the Gensokyo spiritual tradition, known for fighting monsters and sealing dungeons off before they can fester and grow. Within folkloric works, Hakurei shrine maidens are often described or illustrated throwing many dozens of paper talismans at woebegone monsters at once, forming transfixing patterns. This imagery is colloquially referred to as “danmaku.”
> 
> 4 In Gensokyo mythology, the Hakurei order developed a system by which they and other heroic figures could spar on even terms with less powerful monsters or humans for the sake of being sporting. The system revolves around the use of spell cards that temporarily heighten the user’s natural magical abilities so they can cast their own danmaku barrage.
> 
> 5 An alteration of the common-language idiom “shit went south.” Every halfling knows stories of the unfortunate souls who picked up a black magic artifact only to be kidnapped and taken west by the elves


	2. Breakfast

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Kei Yuuki: Adopted catgirl daughter of a sake brewer. Historians of the future will probably call her a guy.
> 
> Haruka Hasegawa: Displaced Gensokyo nobility and protege of professor Itsuki. More dangerous than any monster when drunk.
> 
> Tadayasu Soemon Sawaki: Second son of a yeast starter business owner and childhood friend of Kei’s. Sometimes mistaken for a halfling, or a protagonist.
> 
> Keizou Itsuki: A scholar who specializes in fermented foods. Manufactured poisons for ambitious Gensokyo nobles during his previous career.

The early morning sun streamed through the window in Kei's room, wrapping her curled body in its warm embrace. Her ears perked up as a crow in the garden called out, and she craned her neck to get a better view. A natto peddler advertised his wares from the street outside. Mornings like these made her wish she could just bask in the sun all morning and not have to worry about all of that school stuff. Or anything else, really.

There was a knock at her bedroom door. "Hey, we gotta start getting ready," Hasegawa's voice was brash and commanding as always, "Get the rice and soup going, I'm gonna see if I can flag down the salmon guy."

Kei groaned. "Yeah, okay."

Reluctantly, she climbed out of her futon and tugged on her yukata to straighten it out, dislodging a sprinkling of black, white, and orange fur that had collected inside. She made her way across Hasegawa's long, stretched out eel bed of a house towards the kitchen, pausing briefly to bow to the makeshift Kaenbyou6 shrine display she'd squeezed in next to Hasegawa's more elaborate tribute to Marisa.7 She piled some charcoal and pinecones in to the stove, then set to work washing the rice and dicing some green onions and mushrooms for the soup.

Moving in with Hasegawa for college had been a pretty huge adjustment. Not in a bad way necessarily, the two of them got along fine and the house itself was pretty nice. And of course, having someone she could trust both at school and at home was essential. But like, the city seemed denser here, and often less personable than her old familiar neighborhood. A large part of that probably came from she herself being more closed off and furtive, though. Back home, it was essentially an open secret that she was what she was. If the wind carried off her headwear or she started purring while hanging out with friends, the locals were used to turning a blind eye. The way her father told it, a lot of those families had been involved in the decision to place her with the Yuukis in the first place. But here, she had to do everything she could to hide her true nature from when she left in the morning to when she retired for the evening. And of course, the numerous overnight guests Hasegawa brought home with her complicated things.

On the other hand, the move had granted her the opportunity to experiment with gender a bit and develop an identity as the cat-woman she'd long aspired to be. Making that kind of switch around people she'd grown up around just felt kinda awkward. Like, most of them probably wouldn't be _too_ weird about it, but Kei still felt a little self conscious doing things like trying on new clothes or using more feminine language around people who'd known her since forever. And plus, she figured that to some extent they probably wouldn't really see her any differently. Out here where nobody but Hasegawa, Itsuki, and Sawaki knew she used to be a guy, she felt a lot more free to try new things and search for an expression that suited her. She placed a basin for the soup in the stovetop, and set the rice in the steamer.8

The front door slid open. "Hey sorry I took a while," Hasegawa called, "I couldn't find salmon guy and then this kid -or wait, maybe he was a halfling? Whatever- uh, he talked my fuckin ear off until I bought some stuff from him. So we got some sausage that I think he said is chorizo but I'm not sure."

Kei's bobbed tail twitched excitedly under her yukata. "Oh! I hope it's good, it's been ages since we've had anything like that."

"Yeah hopefully. I'm always a little wary of street vendors who are too pushy, but we'll see." Hasegawa entered the kitchen and placed a basket on the countertop. She eyed its contents suspiciously. "So how's stuff with Sawaki? You guys went to the theater yesterday, right?" She banged about in the cupboard and emerged with her ibrik9 and a sack of coffee grounds. She smelled the inside of the bag, shrugged, and scooped some into the copper vessel, followed with water and a palmful of sugar and spices.

"Oh yeah!" Kei's ears perked up. "It was good! That troupe always does a really good job." She retrieved the chorizo from the basket, took a moment to savor the aroma of piping hot sausage, and started to slice it up. "We got a spot that was like, up off the pit a little so Sawaki could actually see what was going on. And then he walked me back here afterwards and we went past the temple and stuff. It was very romantic."

"Did you hold hands?" Hasegawa teased. She extended the ibrik over an opening in the stove.

"Well..." Kei's gaze settled on the basin of simmering soup. "I dunno, it just didn't feel right. I mean obviously I wanna just like, snuggle up next to him and rub our cheeks together and stuff. But it seems like he's still stuck in like 'oh, we're just old friends' thinking, kinda."

"Oh yeah, I've dated folks like that before." The coffee brew started to boil and Hasegawa yanked it away from the flame and let it cool for a moment before sticking it back in the fire. "You gotta like, just take the initiative and back them up against a wall or something and lean in close. Drives 'em nuts."

Kei blushed. "I dunno if I can be quite that forward. It's kinda scary, y'know?" She mixed some miso paste into the soup.

"That's how everyone feels," Hasegawa concurred. She took the coffee off the fire again and filled an ochoko for each of them. "Which is why it's a good thing to be able to do. If nobody wants to make the first move, you just stand around like idiots and never get anywhere."

"Yeah, you're probably right," Kei sighed. She sealed up the stove and started carrying the food out to the table.

The two of them knelt by the table and clapped their hands together.

"Itadakimasu."

"Itadakimasu."

Kei blew on her bowl of soup. "Itsuki's giving us a new project today, right?"

"Yeah." Hasegawa swallowed her mouthful of rice. "When we were down there last night, it looked like the spider lilies were starting to move around finally. Which like, I guess that means we did an okay job at the mana warding, thank Reimu, cuz most of the mana would have to be coagulating in the dungeon instead of spreading out over the campus for that to happen."

"I honestly can't believe it was this easy." Kei continued cooling the soup. "I was pretty worried when Itsuki said we were gonna keep going without his mage friend." She took a cautious sip, decided it was still far too hot, and set the bowl back on the table.

"You really do have a cat's tongue, huh?" Hasegawa took a bite of chorizo. "But yeah, I mean, scribbling on the basement walls and messing with dirt is probably the easy part, unfortunately. Now we're dealing with live monsters, which is probably a recipe for disaster."

"They're just plants, it can't be that bad," Kei protested.

Hasegawa shrugged. "The animal type monsters are way worse, but like, some of the plant ones are still pretty fuckin mean. I went dungeon diving a couple times, like, way back before I got involved with the school," she gestured over her shoulder. "We ran into this bastard called a territorial parsnip10 once. They're these big, fuck-off tuber things with towering flower stalks and all kinds of bullshit. Anyway, our fighter got covered in sap fighting it because like, as soon as you cut it open it goes spraying fuckin everywhere." She took a sip of coffee and winced. "Fuck, I made that way too strong. Uh, shit. Marisa stole my train of thought."

"Something about sap?" Kei offered. She shoved a wad of rice into her maw.

"Fuck. Right," Hasegawa fished a chunk of onion out of the soup. "Yeah so when we got up to the surface, the guy just fuckin immolated basically as soon as the sun hit him, cuz I guess the sap does something weird to your skin? We had to douse and heal him and then like, explain to everyone that he wasn't some kinda fuckin vampire. So yeah. Plant monsters don't screw around."

"Damn." Kei considered.

"Yeah, monsters are super dangerous." Hasegawa gesticulated with her chopsticks. "These little spider lily guys are kinda wimpy, but still, gotta be on-guard."

* * *

"Fuck fuck fuck," Kei bolted out of the fermentation dungeon and Hasegawa and Sawaki slammed the door shut behind her. The three of them leaned up against it, bracing for impact. Kei's ears lay flush against the top of her head, and she felt the fur all over her body bristle. Moments later, the writhing forms of the spider lilies pursuing them slammed into the other side. The door groaned under the force, but it held fast.

"How did they get out of the paddock?" Hasegawa reached up and pulled the heavy wooden beam down across the door to bar it, and the group cautiously stepped back. The raspy sound of vines rubbing against wood emanated from the other side, but it appeared the chase was over.

Sawaki glanced down at the ground. "Uh, I think I might've left it unlatched when I was feeding them earlier."

"Shit." Hasegawa sighed. "How are we gonna get them back in there? Those things were already a pain when they _weren't_ animate. I doubt we can just herd them back into the pen by ourselves."

Kei's fur relaxed as the sense of danger began to fade. "What happened to that mage Itsuki was trying to get in touch with? I bet she could give us a hand."

"Marcille?" Hasegawa scoffed. "She's not that kind of mage, just another academic." She ran a hand through her hair. "God damn it! This sucks."

"Sorry," Sawaki apologized.

"No, it's... ugh." Hasegawa groaned. "Let's just tell Itsuki and make it his problem."

The trio made their way back up through the labyrinthine corridors that made up the basement of the agricultural university. Even before they'd began to set up shop, the place felt like a dungeon. The lamp lit passageways meandered in all directions and often looped in on themselves, making navigation difficult without a map. Countless unassuming doors lined the halls, leading to all manner of storage closets and laboratories most residents would never see inside of. Though her companions often stumbled in the dim light, Kei's eyes quickly adjusted to the darkness. The shadowy spaces between the lamps were rendered in vivid shades of grey.

As they walked, Kei donned her long black gloves and a wimple to conceal her feline components. Together with her flowing dress and tights, every inch of fur was covered, and her bobbed tail fit neatly within her outfit. The only things betraying her true nature were her eyes and sharp teeth. It was hard not to always be in a hurry to get back to the company of people who she knew wouldn't freak out about her maybe, possibly being a little bit monstrous, at any rate though.

"Is that a new dress?" Sawaki asked, breaking the silence.

"Yeah!" Kei's face lit up. "Well, actually I've had it for a bit, but this is like, the first time I've worn it."

"It's uh, it's cute," Sawaki ventured, "It suits you."

"Thanks," Kei beamed. The patterns and rich color of the dress had quickly elevated it to one of her favorites. They walked side by side in silence for a moment. "I should take you to the tailor Itsuki introduced me to sometime. We can get you a kimono that fits right and isn't covered in stains from when we were like, twelve."

"Yeah, that could be fun," Sawaki agreed.

"It's probably gonna be a minute before we have free time like that again," Hasegawa warned, "Assuming we can get someone in here to clean this shit up soon, that is. Maintaining this thing is gonna be a full-time job."

Kei groaned. "That almost makes me wish it _never_ gets fixed."

"Sorry for making sure you two get an education," Hasegawa interjected, "Aren't you down here together basically all the time anyway? What are you even complaining about?"

"Yeah, but it's not the same!" Kei lamented. "I wanna like, relax and do something fun, y'know? Hanging out in a grimy dungeon shoveling compost isn't really my idea of a good time."

The trio arrived at professor Itsuki's office and Hasegawa knocked twice before letting herself in. the light from the setting sun in the open window stung Kei's eyes momentarily as they adjusted to the sudden change in intensity. Itsuki looked up from the notebook he had been scribbling in and peered over the collection of potted belladonna and hemlock and other toxic specimens on his desk as they entered.

"You're back early," Itsuki commented. "How did the new batch of sprites take to the dungeon?"

Sawaki eyed the ground. "Uh, about that, professor-"

"The spider lilies got out of their pen before we could finish scattering them," Hasegawa cut him off.

"That's unfortunate," Itsuki's face belied little emotion, but Kei couldn't help but pick up a menacing aura. "I don't suppose there's much to be done about that, is there?"

"No, sir," Hasegawa answered.

Itsuki sighed. "These are active, dangerous creatures we're working with here. It's not the same as raising tomato plants or pickling radishes. We have to exercise immense caution." his face softened. "I'm just about done for the day. What do you say we visit the pub this evening?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> 6 Rin Kaenbyou is a minor figure within Gensokyo folklore known for stealing corpses to use as fuel for the underworld. She has a feline motif, and is often depicted having cat ears and a forked tail. Though the Yuuki family has no particular connection to this figure, Kei grew to identify with her due to her own feline aspects and morbid aesthetic tastes. Kei’s shrine features candles and handmade ceramic figures of a cat and a wheelbarrow.
> 
> 7 Marisa Kirisame is a popular mythological figure associated with flashy magical spells, trickery, and sapphism. Many Gensokyo magic users pray to her both for academic inspiration and out of a superstition that she’ll steal the knowledge from their heads when they most need it, such as during exams and symposiums. The shrine contains, among other elements, a stack of blank notebooks topped with an ofuda labeled “do not steal” as a decoy.
> 
> 8 In Gensokyo and most other tributary societies that make up Karka Broud’s swirling cultural hotpot, things like gender and sexuality generally aren’t conceived as static or immutable things, and it’s not uncommon for individuals to shift between multiple presentations and roles over the course of their lives. However, the growing tensions between the city-states of humans and the elven empire have begun to chip away at this acceptance, and a person percieved as too androgynous may invite unfavorable comparisons.
> 
> 9 A type of copper kettle with a long handle, used for brewing coffee. The Utayan method of making coffee drastically reduced prep time and made the beverage more accessible across the continent.
> 
> 10 The territorial parsnip is a monsterous variety of the mundane but still quite dangerous giant hogweed. The giant hogweed’s sap is phototoxic- if a creature gets it on their skin, it’ll sunburn extremely quickly and severely, causing blisters, skin discoloration, and possibly scarring.


End file.
